(PRWEB) February 21, 2007 -- The Health Insurance Resource Center at healthinsurance.org has added state-specific sections on its site with information targeted for Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada and Tennessee consumers of affordable health insurance.



Healthinsurance.org (http://www.healthinsurance.org) is one of the Web's oldest and respected consumer sites, offering consumers access to individual and family health insurance quotes since 1994. The site offers a much-linked-to glossary of health insurance terms, health insurance consumer tips, articles on challenges to the self-employed in finding and keeping health insurance, 53 ways for consumers to reduce their health care expenses, information on state health risk pools for the medically-uninsurable, and much more.

The new state-specific pages join others created last year, according to senior editor Charles Dewey. "Health insurance availability and legislation governing it varies widely from state-to-state," he said. Existing pages for states such as California, Arizona, Michigan and others, have all been updated for 2007, including information on any legislative efforts to improve access to affordable health insurance.

The site is heavily weighted toward directing consumers to non-profit and governmental sites which can provide information without promoting a specific company or plan, Dewey said. "Our intent is to arm consumers with the knowledge they need to make wise choices in protecting their family's health.

"We offer a great deal of original content on healthinsurance.org, but in the state sections we are performing more of an editor's role in seeking out information published elsewhere, and then bringing some organization to it. Our more-than-a-decade's experience following health insurance news allows us to separate the wheat from the chaff." He said the editors pull information from foundations ranking the quality of health care in each state, financial magazine rankings of America's best health insurance plans and much more.

Finding information on health insurance isn't the problem -- wading through it is, he added. "If you do a Google search on 'California Health Insurance' you'll get 16 million results. We want to winnow it down to a handful of the most useful resources and organizes it in a way to save the busy person time," Dewey said.

Healthinsurance.org partners with the Web's leading health insurance quote service in providing its visitors with a way to compare health insurance plan details and pricing online with complete privacy. "Many sites offering health insurance quotes on the Internet are merely lead-generating tools for insurance agents, who follow up with you on the phone and may only offer plans from one or two companies," he said. "We think its much better for consumers to be able to compare and contrast various plans available in their state, using the information we provide elsewhere on our site to make smart decisions for their families -- all while preserving your privacy and avoiding high-pressure sales techniques."

Healthinsurance.org's editors have a rich history of working with non-profits, including 20 years helping two different non-profits produce the annual technical guide on state health risk pools to give the medically-uninsurable access to health care at an affordable price.

Beginning in 1976 in Minnesota, now 34 states have enacted these risk pools which provide access to affordable health care to those who are turned down on the open market because of a pre-existing health problem.

"Obviously, risk pools are only a small part of helping American's uninsured find affordable health insurance," Dewey said. "Because they are state programs, they vary greatly in structure, funding and benefits ... some such as Minnesota provide an excellent option for its citizens, while others have had to close enrollment due to lack of funding."

"As we approach the 2008 elections, we are looking at the various proposals offered by presidential candidates," Dewey said, "with an eye towards producing a 'health insurance consumer's voters guide' comparing and contrasting the ideas being considered."

The new states section can be reached from the site's home page at http://www.healthinsurance.org.

Access to free health insurance quotes, private and online, can be found at http://www.healthinsurance.org/freequote.lasso.

Healthinsurance.org provides free information and resources on individual health insurance, major medical insurance and affordable medical insurance but is not an insurance company or insurance agency.

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